No Holds Barred First Person Shooter Simulation

by GrathiusXR:

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos

Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising is not your typical run-and-gun shooter, which I found out the hard way. Yes I knew it was a tactical military shooter but my God I wasn’t expecting it to be this hard!  But the reward of changing how I played paid off.

I’ve played my fair share of simulator games, from Forza 2/3, to Gran Tursimo 3, to Microsoft’s Flight Simulator and so forth but Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising (which we’ll call Operation Flashpoint 2) was my first venture into the world of tactical military shooters.

And boy did I cop the short end of the stick!

• Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, blood boiling action

Upon encountering my first enemy on the island of Skira (which to note is based on the real world island of Kiska) I was dead.

A profound realization hit me once my character had hit the ground and it was then and there that I thought there was no way I’d complete this game with my usual kind of tactics.

Operation Flashpoint 2: is all about the art of war, in that strategy plays a massive role in the successful completion of a mission and the survival of your squad.

Depending on which difficulty you chose prior to starting the games main campaign, you can be in a world full of hurt.

To HUD, or not To HUD, that is the question?

On the lowest difficulty a full HUD is present for you with ammo indicator, location of enemies, compass, weapon selection etc… whilst on the hardest difficulty setting you will be ‘flying blind’.

There is no HUD, no indication of enemies other than trying to see where fire is coming from (look for those small muzzle flashes) and the shouts from your squad members as they let you know what is happening around you. All that, as well as having no checkpoints means you face life or death based on your ability and patience in completing the mission right from the start.

This can be a real pain no matter what difficulty you choose, as you always have a 50/50 chance of either being killed from a single bullet or being critically wounded in a firefight and bleed-out. Lowering/raising the difficulty level does not enhance or decrease the enemy AI’s health nor damage.

This is a difficulty system that I actually appreciate much more than other shooters I have played. They just throw dozens more enemies at you with increased high levels of health and even a higher accuracy of hitting you in some cases. In Operation Flashpoint 2 you will need wits and smarts about you in order to pass each mission.

As previously stated, if you run and gun in this game, you’re gone: period. So taking cover at every possible tree, hip high wall or house is your best option for survival.

Use the terrain, gullies, rocks, and keep out of line of sight. It also means constantly being on the lookout for where gun fire is coming from, remembering exactly how many bullets are in the clip of your equipped M4A1 Carbine, know where your squad is at at all times, as you will need to remember this if you run the game with no HUD present. Even with the HUD present, it is still a task at the best of times.

• Operation Flashpoint 2: DragonRising Vid 2 Big Boom!

It certainly makes the game that much more realistic, exciting, and adrenaline pumping and overall very satisfying when you complete a mission.

Ahh yes, but….

However- there’s always a ‘however isn’t there- what detracts from this high sense of realism is the current state of the AI that controls your squad members. At moments during a mission they can prove to be very unreliable in their compliance and reactions.

I would often find myself frustratingly choosing Move, Follow Me on the radial command wheel, only to have my squad members either go to the wrong designation, or stand in the same position not moving in any direction and being out in the open where they can be cut down.

This predictably resulted in them becoming critically injured and then dying. This meant I often had to go it alone and finish the mission, and this can become quite a hindrance especially if at moments you get shot in the leg negating the ability to run.

You can call in a ‘Medic’ to heal both yourself and a squad member, but the command can be difficult to achieve in the heat of the moment, and often proves fatal for all concerned.

So yes, Operation Flashpoint 2 at times can be quite brutal to the player, especially considering that the enemy can often take at any random moment two to four critically placed hits before they die. Shoot them twice in the stomach and they still just keep running towards your position as if they were invincible.

Shoot them in the leg, and it often does not hinder them in any way in their running either. Heck, there were times that I’d shoot them in the stomach and they’d fall to the ground, playing dead on me, only for me to realise too late that they had just started crawling.

This becomes quite discouraging to the player really, and can often equate to a plethora of frustrating moments where you’re in the final act of a mission, only to be continually unload clips into enemies just to kill them, only to be defeated by a signal enemy who has done ‘the sneaky’ on you and started crawling and fired upon you from the ground or hidden position.

Keep your eyes open, and your ears pricked…

It’s not all frustration though in Operation Flashpoint 2. So that controllers won’t be flying around the room when some sniper or rifleman hits you from 100+ meters away (and they can and will by the way, so keep your head down and eyes open).

Operation Flashpoint 2 features one hell of a crazy draw-distance which stretches for up to 35KM so you can see clearer than many shooters.

This is thanks to Codemaster’s new generation EGO Engine ( DiRT, DiRT 2 ), which means that you can just so easily snipe enemies from afar at any given moment in the mission with the right weaponry, or visa-versa.

The unreal depth of field, fire smoke, day/night cycle, dust, blood mists, draw-distance, rendering and much more: the EGO Engine does it with flying colours, especially on the consoles.

Whilst the PC counterpart will undoubtedly be miles ahead in the graphics department given their ability to make so many adjustments, the 360 pulls off the island of Skira (Kiska) remarkably well.

Of course you have your odd bland looking rock every couple hundred meters, the grass which can sometimes look very two dimensional with some interesting clipping issues here and there, but it does mostly do the job well enough so as to engage the player in an extremely heart pounding and visceral military like experience.

Listen to your heart beat baby….

I will note here however, that my favorite feature of Operation Flashpoint 2 has to be the sound of the players heartbeat. The more you sprint the fast and louder your heart starts to beat.

Sprint for a good 100-200 metres and the sound of the players heart on your 5.1 surround sound will provide quite the adrenaline rush. Start bleeding out, and it slows and becomes louder, your movements more slow, till finally, death.

All this coupled with an estimated 70+ real life weapons and attachments, artillery strikes and a realistic damage system, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising provides an enjoyably frustrating gaming experience for players who are new to this genre, as well as hardened veterans in First Person Shooters.

• Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising vid 3 – How real do you want it?

Flanking squads, calling in air strikes, different command systems and radial wheels, command trees, operational abilities, squad tactics and much more, are all at your disposal as you are spread across the small island of Skira (Kiska). This can make for a very realistic adventure into the world of first class First Person Shooters.

Tacticle, tacticle, tactical . . . it’s all about tactics….

It will most certainly take some serious adjustments to usual shooter gameplay style in order to get used to the game, especially given the tedious and often frustrating command wheel, which at times, becomes quite difficult to remember which radial wheel and category Move, Follow Me, Tactical, Line Formation, Fire, Suppress, Attack and so forth were in.

Also while you’re in that radial command wheel, you can still be shot or killed, and that the AI will still be advancing on your position, as in real life.

So make sure you’re somewhere ‘safe’ before hitting the Map, Command Radial wheel etc. up . . . as the AI isn’t going to just sit there and wait for you to get the drop on them. They’ll shoot your little backside off very quickly indeed, make no mistakes about that.

Whether you’re in the market for a game to simply pass the time away, or in the mood for something to really challenge your wits and abilities, then Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising will certainly deliver that it spades.

Just think of it as a First Person version of Mercenaries 2 and 1. You have a huge amount of weapons, varied missions from running 100′s of metres and taking out Anti-Aircraft bases, but where one shot can kill you, but make no bones about that.

Overall though, the entire experience you will have in Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising will be unlike any other experience you have had thus far in shooters. Well for me that was certainly the case, and I can tell you now, that I’ve had my fair share of First Person Shooter experience over my years of gaming to know a great game when I experience one.

[ED: I have to agree with Arthur on this one (actually, I don't usually disagree, but felt moved to comment) - This game gives it to you in spades, and while some might feel 8/10 is a tad light or unjustified, we believe any game scoring a 8/10 is the mark of an excellent game.

It’s one worth buying and keeping to fight another rainy day. It falls into the rank of “excellence” not “mediocre“ as some would believe a game scoring 7 or 8/10 would. A game need not score a 9 or 9.5 to be great or excellent, that is a false scoring belief scale which has crept into the industry over the last few years. One that OXCGN means to pull back into what it once was; a fair and ‘honest’ scoring system that accurately reflects the true rating of a game, be it good, or bad.

Excellent review Arthur, makes me want to run out and grab two copies]

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos

“8.0/10

• Read other reviews at TestFreaks. Overall media score 7.7/10

• Other games in genre at discount $’s for ALL OXCGN readers + Bonus Points

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